Bernhard Hoetger. The Plain Tree Grove. A Total Artwork on the Mathildenhöhe

The Expressionist sculptor Bernhard Hoetger (1874-1949) later belonged to the artists’ circle of Worpswede, together with Heinrich Vogeler and Paula Modersohn-Becker. However, while still a member of the Darmstadt artists’ colony, he had developed a series of sculptural works for the Plane Tree Grove of the Art Deco exhibition centre, Mathildenhöhe, in Darmstadt. The large reliefs Spring, Summer, Sleep and Resurrection, as well as animal sculptures, jug carriers, text reliefs, vases and personifications of the bright and dark sides of human nature feature in this ensemble. Hoetger applied motifs taken from Buddhist and Christian art, and ancient Egyptian and Romantic poetry to create an almost sacred outdoor realm.